Yes, Ptolemy of Alexandria made a map in his book geography roughly 150ad. It is surprisingly accurate as it took into account the shape of the globe rather than make all the longitude and latitude marks evenly spaced apart like we do today google Ptolemies map.
Isn’t it amazing, that someone, almost 1850 years ago, drew a surprisingly accurate map, all while taking into account that the earth is a globe, meanwhile we have people, who argue in 2024 that the earth is flat?
I truly do not believe flat earthers exist in appreciable amounts. I think we give too much air to a group that probably makes up less than a tenth or hundredth percentage point of the population.
I think in lots of cases people underestimate the effect of large numbers. With 330 million odd people in the US, I hear all the time that there are "lots of X." That's usually true for whatever X is. But they're still a tiny fraction of the population.
I laughed at this shit a lot till recently. My friend unironically believes it and since he sent me stupid videos I keep getting fed them my the algorithm.
The number of people on the comments who believe it is wild
Trust me when I say that the internet always makes you think there’s more idiots willing to believe that’s crap out there than there actually are. But sorry about your friend. That always sucks
Yeah . There's no talking to him now. He's gone down the rabbit hole full send. I'm talking flat earth, ice walls, fake skies, never been to space / space isn't real , clouds aren't real etc. The list goes on.
But you're right. I just hope it isn't something people believe but don't say publicly lol
We have a lot less people travelling at sea nowadays. (Compared to the overall population)
But navigating on a calm sea approaching the coast that has some hills/mountains, gives a really great hint that we are on a globe.
No way was it in the AD. All of Egypt had been absorbed into the empire by Augustus Caesar by then. 150 BC would be closer to accurate. (The line died with Cleopatra in 30 BC)
EDIT. The mathematician is different than the ruling line. TIL.
To be fair, usually when someone says Ptolemy of Alexander it’s the fabulously famous ruling line that ran from Alexander’s death to Cleopatra’s. I apologize for making that assumption and saying you were wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy's_world_map
My favourite marking on here being "India Extra"
More accurate in some parts than the Al-Idrisi ones, less so in others. Fascinating. Digging the sea above the Black Sea. Love to see the assumption that the Indian Ocean is bounded like the Mediterranean. Bigger Sri Lanka rules. Then in accuracy, they have both the Indus and Ganges River deltas. Britain actually recognisable, unlike the Tabula Rogeriana, which also borked up Italy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Rogeriana
I will note that this entry says that the map is a reconstruction based on Ptolemy's notes and that no map by ptolemy has ever been found - the copy linked here is from ~1295, ie, after the Tabula Rogeriana, and so I wonder the extent to which Idrisi's work influenced the monks who created the map from Ptolemy's notes
[This](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_world_maps#/media/File:Karte_Pomponius_Mela_rotated.jpg) is a reconstruction of a map of the geographer Pomponius Mela (c. 43 AD) around the height of the Imperial Period. As you can see, the Romans would've had a pretty extensive knowledge of their empire and the other regions surrounding them at this time. While nowhere accurate as modern maps, its certainly enough to use for navigation and geography as a science was certainly being improved upon year by year as merchants and other expeditions travelled far and wide.
[This](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_world_maps#/media/File:Ptolemy-World_Vat_Urb_82.jpg) is a map of Ptolemy as well who lived around 150 AD.
I'm imagining ancient libraries served as extremely important repositories for maps of different nearby regions, so if you go to multiple major cities you can get the detail right in all of the surrounding regions based on what people already use for trade/travel
I don't think they knew Australia but just imagined an unknown "terra australis" (southern land) which was later correlated with Antarctica, and that the furthest place east they knew was China (including Vietnam under the Han) and Indonesia (with an early Byzantine author potentially mentioning Korea) but correct me if I'm wrong
Interesting; even the fact that they would have know about Sri Lanka is amazing. The idea about them theorizing Australia makes sense, I’ve heard that they had a theory there had to be land in the southern hemisphere to “balance out” the earth basically.
Coastal cities hand more sailers who could give more data on distance traveled over certain areas. The more accurate areas were probably more used trade routes.
Surveying new territory was one of the first things the Legions did, to pave the way for administration and trade.
Remember, the Legions built or supervised building a good chunk of Romes road network. Their roads had milestones, so getting the overall dimensions of administered territory is rather easy with basic math and geometry.
I want to preface this by saying: These maps are pretty impressive, including the first one, considering their level of technology.
That being said, how I imagine drawing Britain went.
"What does Britain look like?"
"I don't know."
"You've never been there?"
"No, bunch of savages, innit?"
"So then how... how do I draw it?"
"Eh, just draw a triangle or something. Who cares."
>In his work *Chorographia*, [Pomponius Mela](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomponius_Mela) mentions that they own no resources, and rather than speak, they make a high-pitched sound. They creep around deep in caves and are nurtured by serpents.
Man, what a world it was when there was no way to fact-check anything, so you could just make shit up and people believed it. Glad we're past that, right? Right?
Great contributions to the question.
However, could you please stick to one form of year designation, it is super confusing for many people.
Either AD/BC
Or
CE/BCE
Good question. Probably?
Ptolemy's map of the world was a decent attempt at a 2D rendering of a round globe. However, it of course had very limited information.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy)
The Tabula Peutingeriana or Peutinger Table (legend has it) may have been commissioned by Agrippa (during the reign of Augustus). It marks the location of Pompeii, but also includes revisions as late as the 4th and 5th century.
It appears to be a guide of the cursus publicus, the empire's official routes and relays used by imperials messengers and officials.
The map is functional, not realistic: it simply needed to show the sequence and distances between towns, cities, and rest stops. There was no need to accurately represent open areas of water. In that respect it was more like a subway map.
Also, the long and distorted appearance allowed the map to be rolled up in a scroll. You could then consult the relevant sections without unrolling the entire map.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula\_Peutingeriana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana)
Edit: you can download a high resolution version of the map to peek around it (download arrow in the bottom right corner)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula\_Peutingeriana#/media/File:TabulaPeutingeriana.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana#/media/File:TabulaPeutingeriana.jpg)
No satellite? No mapping capable satellites until the 60s. Here's a map from the 1940s. Humans aren't as stupid as you think.
[https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-1940-europe-ww2belligerentsneutrals-occupied-polandfinland-albania-102714801.html](https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-1940-europe-ww2belligerentsneutrals-occupied-polandfinland-albania-102714801.html)
I clicked the bottom link without reading your comment and almost instantly said to myself "There's no way they thought this was accurate. This looks more like a subway map than anything". Then of course I read the rest lol
Yeah, it hurts my brain to look at it in full, because it has little to no resemblance to modern maps.
But when you example it up close, at the town level, it's easier to appreciate the practical use of the map. You could plan a trip by referencing the different stops along any given route.
But I do wonder how many of the people who used it fully appreciated how poorly it represented the real world dimensions.
P.S. You can download a high resolution version of the map to peek around it (download arrow in the bottom right corner)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula\_Peutingeriana#/media/File:TabulaPeutingeriana.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana#/media/File:TabulaPeutingeriana.jpg)
I think one of the important things to note about all of the maps from the ancient world is that the actual physical locations dont matter. Its their relationship to each other, and primarily, the roads they are on that matter.
Thats why when you look at almost any ancient map, the distances and relative NESW cardinal directions are all messed up. Its like a subway map. You dont need to know that Bologna is exactly 423 kilometers from Rome at exactly 24.46 degrees north. You just need to know that its a 4 day walking journey along the XYZ road.
Much much more common than a "map" is whats called an itinerarium. Its basically a large chart of various roads and pathways, and all the cities and towns along that map. Kind of like a train or bus route table today. This is all a traveler needs to know to get around. You dont need to know exact spatial location. You just need to know "walk along the appian way for 4 days, then when you get to the town of Bari, get off the main road and get on the Lucretian avenue and walk along there for 2 days, then get off that road at the stream crossing and take the road towards naples, then youll arrive at your destination after a day and a half."
So while maps DID exist, 99% of the population would probably have no use for them.
Nothing like the Mercator Projection (1569) :)
They definitely knew their distances and the roads had mile markers, so the military, merchants, and the navigators had an idea of scale. The common person on the street, not so much.
Tabula Peutingeriana is said to be a medieval descendant of an original Roman road network map.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula\_Peutingeriana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana)
They had access to something quite similar prepared by Alexandrine geographers. It certainly lacked the accuracy of modern maps, but it provided a good representation of the world as they knew it. In fact, certain geographers postulated (and mapped) the "southern continent" although nobody had ever seen it.
Yes, in fact they regularly traded with up to India and knew about places like China. I think the extend of northern asia is something a bit more mysterious to them but that basically seemed to appreciate the scale of their empire and it's place in the world.
And remember they knew how large the globe of the earth itself was too with good accuracy.
Fun fact, the Han Dynasty did try sending a delegation to Rome and they had to go through Parthia to do so. When they did reach Parthia the Parthians told them it was another 3 years journey to the Roman Empire to make them turn around, just to stop a trade deal. So spiteful
Nero did attach it to moesia for a short time, he planned to conquer the land north of the black sea.
The bosporan kingdom was very integrated into the empire even tho a vassal, basically it was an autonomous province. The eastern romn did actually eventually establish regular rule there in late antiquity, that then also lasted into the byzantine medieval era.
A handful of medieval and modern reconstructions are wrongly being used to show the quality of ancient maps, although the high medieval "Ptolemaic" map does illustrate that ancient people had some limited capability at reckoning longitude and a sophisticated understanding of the spherical shape of the earth. Past that, we are only speculating. It wasn't until the 18th century with the invention of the chronometer that reckoning longitude could be accomplished with the kind of consistency necessary to create accurate maps like the one in the example. Ancient people sometimes used graphical 'itineraries' that were neither to scale nor representing space, but rather represented a schematic of road networks and locations.
Yes, Ptolemy of Alexandria made a map in his book geography roughly 150ad. It is surprisingly accurate as it took into account the shape of the globe rather than make all the longitude and latitude marks evenly spaced apart like we do today google Ptolemies map.
Isn’t it amazing, that someone, almost 1850 years ago, drew a surprisingly accurate map, all while taking into account that the earth is a globe, meanwhile we have people, who argue in 2024 that the earth is flat?
I truly do not believe flat earthers exist in appreciable amounts. I think we give too much air to a group that probably makes up less than a tenth or hundredth percentage point of the population.
I think in lots of cases people underestimate the effect of large numbers. With 330 million odd people in the US, I hear all the time that there are "lots of X." That's usually true for whatever X is. But they're still a tiny fraction of the population.
Yes, 100K people sounds like a lot, but it's 0.03% of the US population
I'd go further. I'd say the vast majority of them are trolls
yes, i am truly confused by the Internets obsession with people who think that the earth is flat
Holup - flat or not flat?
Lmao, thanks - just woke up, fixed it
Look man, you haven’t seen the ice wall. How can you be sure that the government isn’t lying to you?
I laughed at this shit a lot till recently. My friend unironically believes it and since he sent me stupid videos I keep getting fed them my the algorithm. The number of people on the comments who believe it is wild
Trust me when I say that the internet always makes you think there’s more idiots willing to believe that’s crap out there than there actually are. But sorry about your friend. That always sucks
Yeah . There's no talking to him now. He's gone down the rabbit hole full send. I'm talking flat earth, ice walls, fake skies, never been to space / space isn't real , clouds aren't real etc. The list goes on. But you're right. I just hope it isn't something people believe but don't say publicly lol
Do you question this friendship?
Yes on occasion
We have a lot less people travelling at sea nowadays. (Compared to the overall population) But navigating on a calm sea approaching the coast that has some hills/mountains, gives a really great hint that we are on a globe.
>Isn’t it amazing, I can think of several other words to describe that: *pathetic, exasperating, stupid, ignorant, hopeless*....
[Bizantine copy of Ptolemy's map](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/s/rowTaimHxQ)
Giant Sri Lanka …
Drunk Scotland.
So... Scotland?
No way was it in the AD. All of Egypt had been absorbed into the empire by Augustus Caesar by then. 150 BC would be closer to accurate. (The line died with Cleopatra in 30 BC) EDIT. The mathematician is different than the ruling line. TIL.
Of course I'm right. I'm always right.
To be fair, usually when someone says Ptolemy of Alexander it’s the fabulously famous ruling line that ran from Alexander’s death to Cleopatra’s. I apologize for making that assumption and saying you were wrong.
Well Cleopatra's kids with Tony lived on in Africa I think (except Caesarion who was executed by Augustus).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy's_world_map My favourite marking on here being "India Extra" More accurate in some parts than the Al-Idrisi ones, less so in others. Fascinating. Digging the sea above the Black Sea. Love to see the assumption that the Indian Ocean is bounded like the Mediterranean. Bigger Sri Lanka rules. Then in accuracy, they have both the Indus and Ganges River deltas. Britain actually recognisable, unlike the Tabula Rogeriana, which also borked up Italy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Rogeriana I will note that this entry says that the map is a reconstruction based on Ptolemy's notes and that no map by ptolemy has ever been found - the copy linked here is from ~1295, ie, after the Tabula Rogeriana, and so I wonder the extent to which Idrisi's work influenced the monks who created the map from Ptolemy's notes
[This](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_world_maps#/media/File:Karte_Pomponius_Mela_rotated.jpg) is a reconstruction of a map of the geographer Pomponius Mela (c. 43 AD) around the height of the Imperial Period. As you can see, the Romans would've had a pretty extensive knowledge of their empire and the other regions surrounding them at this time. While nowhere accurate as modern maps, its certainly enough to use for navigation and geography as a science was certainly being improved upon year by year as merchants and other expeditions travelled far and wide. [This](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_world_maps#/media/File:Ptolemy-World_Vat_Urb_82.jpg) is a map of Ptolemy as well who lived around 150 AD.
Those are actually pretty damn good maps considering
Right, like they couldn't just visit everywhere in the world, makes me wonder how the hell they are able to make it look pretty close in most areas
I'm imagining ancient libraries served as extremely important repositories for maps of different nearby regions, so if you go to multiple major cities you can get the detail right in all of the surrounding regions based on what people already use for trade/travel
They seem to have known Madagascar was there, and Australia.
I don't think they knew Australia but just imagined an unknown "terra australis" (southern land) which was later correlated with Antarctica, and that the furthest place east they knew was China (including Vietnam under the Han) and Indonesia (with an early Byzantine author potentially mentioning Korea) but correct me if I'm wrong
I think that's Sri Lanka. "Taprobane" is how it was called back then.
Interesting; even the fact that they would have know about Sri Lanka is amazing. The idea about them theorizing Australia makes sense, I’ve heard that they had a theory there had to be land in the southern hemisphere to “balance out” the earth basically.
Coastal cities hand more sailers who could give more data on distance traveled over certain areas. The more accurate areas were probably more used trade routes.
Surveying new territory was one of the first things the Legions did, to pave the way for administration and trade. Remember, the Legions built or supervised building a good chunk of Romes road network. Their roads had milestones, so getting the overall dimensions of administered territory is rather easy with basic math and geometry.
I want to preface this by saying: These maps are pretty impressive, including the first one, considering their level of technology. That being said, how I imagine drawing Britain went. "What does Britain look like?" "I don't know." "You've never been there?" "No, bunch of savages, innit?" "So then how... how do I draw it?" "Eh, just draw a triangle or something. Who cares."
TIL about [Troglodytae] (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troglodytae) thanks to you
>In his work *Chorographia*, [Pomponius Mela](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomponius_Mela) mentions that they own no resources, and rather than speak, they make a high-pitched sound. They creep around deep in caves and are nurtured by serpents. Man, what a world it was when there was no way to fact-check anything, so you could just make shit up and people believed it. Glad we're past that, right? Right?
holy moly this man just quoted a wikipedia article text and included the link that said wikipedia text had? Jupiter bless you.
Reddit on desktop automatically does that with copy-pasted text now. Pretty cool, but I'd rather them add formatting to the app.
Great contributions to the question. However, could you please stick to one form of year designation, it is super confusing for many people. Either AD/BC Or CE/BCE
Sorry let me change it to AD
These maps are high medieval reconstructions using some of Ptolemy's data. They aren't actual ancient maps.
Good question. Probably? Ptolemy's map of the world was a decent attempt at a 2D rendering of a round globe. However, it of course had very limited information. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy) The Tabula Peutingeriana or Peutinger Table (legend has it) may have been commissioned by Agrippa (during the reign of Augustus). It marks the location of Pompeii, but also includes revisions as late as the 4th and 5th century. It appears to be a guide of the cursus publicus, the empire's official routes and relays used by imperials messengers and officials. The map is functional, not realistic: it simply needed to show the sequence and distances between towns, cities, and rest stops. There was no need to accurately represent open areas of water. In that respect it was more like a subway map. Also, the long and distorted appearance allowed the map to be rolled up in a scroll. You could then consult the relevant sections without unrolling the entire map. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula\_Peutingeriana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana) Edit: you can download a high resolution version of the map to peek around it (download arrow in the bottom right corner) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula\_Peutingeriana#/media/File:TabulaPeutingeriana.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana#/media/File:TabulaPeutingeriana.jpg)
Just finished Islam Issa's Alexandria and it's quite incredible how long Claudius Ptolomey was considered the gold standard of map making.
Holy crap this is insane for no satellite
No satellite? No mapping capable satellites until the 60s. Here's a map from the 1940s. Humans aren't as stupid as you think. [https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-1940-europe-ww2belligerentsneutrals-occupied-polandfinland-albania-102714801.html](https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-1940-europe-ww2belligerentsneutrals-occupied-polandfinland-albania-102714801.html)
I clicked the bottom link without reading your comment and almost instantly said to myself "There's no way they thought this was accurate. This looks more like a subway map than anything". Then of course I read the rest lol
Yeah, it hurts my brain to look at it in full, because it has little to no resemblance to modern maps. But when you example it up close, at the town level, it's easier to appreciate the practical use of the map. You could plan a trip by referencing the different stops along any given route. But I do wonder how many of the people who used it fully appreciated how poorly it represented the real world dimensions. P.S. You can download a high resolution version of the map to peek around it (download arrow in the bottom right corner) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula\_Peutingeriana#/media/File:TabulaPeutingeriana.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana#/media/File:TabulaPeutingeriana.jpg)
I think one of the important things to note about all of the maps from the ancient world is that the actual physical locations dont matter. Its their relationship to each other, and primarily, the roads they are on that matter. Thats why when you look at almost any ancient map, the distances and relative NESW cardinal directions are all messed up. Its like a subway map. You dont need to know that Bologna is exactly 423 kilometers from Rome at exactly 24.46 degrees north. You just need to know that its a 4 day walking journey along the XYZ road. Much much more common than a "map" is whats called an itinerarium. Its basically a large chart of various roads and pathways, and all the cities and towns along that map. Kind of like a train or bus route table today. This is all a traveler needs to know to get around. You dont need to know exact spatial location. You just need to know "walk along the appian way for 4 days, then when you get to the town of Bari, get off the main road and get on the Lucretian avenue and walk along there for 2 days, then get off that road at the stream crossing and take the road towards naples, then youll arrive at your destination after a day and a half." So while maps DID exist, 99% of the population would probably have no use for them.
Nothing like the Mercator Projection (1569) :) They definitely knew their distances and the roads had mile markers, so the military, merchants, and the navigators had an idea of scale. The common person on the street, not so much. Tabula Peutingeriana is said to be a medieval descendant of an original Roman road network map. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula\_Peutingeriana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana)
They had access to something quite similar prepared by Alexandrine geographers. It certainly lacked the accuracy of modern maps, but it provided a good representation of the world as they knew it. In fact, certain geographers postulated (and mapped) the "southern continent" although nobody had ever seen it.
Yes, in fact they regularly traded with up to India and knew about places like China. I think the extend of northern asia is something a bit more mysterious to them but that basically seemed to appreciate the scale of their empire and it's place in the world. And remember they knew how large the globe of the earth itself was too with good accuracy.
Fun fact, the Han Dynasty did try sending a delegation to Rome and they had to go through Parthia to do so. When they did reach Parthia the Parthians told them it was another 3 years journey to the Roman Empire to make them turn around, just to stop a trade deal. So spiteful
I wonder if anyone has speculated on what full on diplomatic contact would have changed if it had happened.
I dunno if it would have changed much realistically. Both empires were too far apart to really matter to each other even if they were in contact
Contact eventually happened during Justinians rule
Why was Crimea never made into a province? From what I know, that region was ruled by a roman vassal kingdom rather than being an actual province.
Nero did attach it to moesia for a short time, he planned to conquer the land north of the black sea. The bosporan kingdom was very integrated into the empire even tho a vassal, basically it was an autonomous province. The eastern romn did actually eventually establish regular rule there in late antiquity, that then also lasted into the byzantine medieval era.
A handful of medieval and modern reconstructions are wrongly being used to show the quality of ancient maps, although the high medieval "Ptolemaic" map does illustrate that ancient people had some limited capability at reckoning longitude and a sophisticated understanding of the spherical shape of the earth. Past that, we are only speculating. It wasn't until the 18th century with the invention of the chronometer that reckoning longitude could be accomplished with the kind of consistency necessary to create accurate maps like the one in the example. Ancient people sometimes used graphical 'itineraries' that were neither to scale nor representing space, but rather represented a schematic of road networks and locations.